zensei's posterous

Customer Service Observation

I had a flash of insight this morning (this so rarely happens that I just had to post about it) about customer service. To make a long story short, and to keep on point, I'll skip the irrelevant details...except to mention that we're talking about Verizon wireless customer service. I had a problem and it eventually got solved. And yes, the automated and impersonal front-end system, with the press 1 for this 2947 for that, is truly annoying and frustrating. Yup, I got disconnected and had to start all over from the beginning at one point. And the customer-facing website didn't agree with what the representatives were seeing on their end. But that's not the insight. What occurred to me during this half-hour experience was that there simply is a huge disconnect between the process and the resolution. The resolution was fine...good, in fact. It was the process that was beyond painful. So, back to my point...bad process will cancel out good resolution every time. If you can't align the "goodness" of your process with the "goodness" of your resolutions your customers will skewer you in social media, word-of-mouth, opinion polls, and so on. Funny thing is that Verizon probably thinks they're doing a great job. Unfortunately, this is hardly unique to Verizon. Called your bank lately? 

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Video Marketing Strategy: "Wide-Casting Vs Narrow-Casting. -- Apples and Oranges: You Decide?"

Are theses two strategies fundamentally different (and conflicting) ideas?  

Broadcasting with web video
On one hand there's the idea of widely distributing a video (or videos), which has its roots in words / concepts like "broadcasting" and "publishing". It is an idea that sees the video itself as a product. It is an idea that defines the audience as cohesive and single entity. It is an idea that that is inherently imprecise in individual communication and measurement. It is an idea that is based on hope / entertainment / passivity as a marketing strategy and influencer of human behavior. It is an idea that can be defined by the phrase "marketing a video". This is by far the lion's share of people's general awareness and perception of web video is related to this idea. 
 
Narrowcasting with web video
On the other hand there's a nearly opposite idea that has its roots in words / concepts like "narrowcasting" and "inbound marketing". It is an idea that sees the video as a driver of well-defined and refined business workflows. It is an idea that springs from It is an idea that defines the audience as a collection of individuals. It is an idea that is inherently precise in individual communication and measurement. It is an idea that is based on action as a marketing strategy and influencer of human behavior. It is an idea that can be defined by the phrase "marketing with video". This is by far the minority of how people think of and understand the possibilities of web video. Especially as it relates to business.


One perspective is that these two ideas, or approaches, are simply, well, different. They cannot be reconciled. As they apply to business they aim to achieve very different results, marketers should chose one or the other.  

  • Broadcasting one's video aims to generate greater awareness. 
  • Narrowcasting aims to generate action.  

The main benefit of narrowcasting is that it is more closely aligned with the "rhythm" and resource realities of businesses today. Marketers are tasked with showing measurable results...now.  And budgets for creating video(s) are tight and heavily scrutinized. As such, marketers must bring as much focus as possible to one's story or message because they may perhaps have only one video with which to work. And they need as much control over viewer engagement as possible because they need to prove that the investment in video enables more predictable and effective conversion processes that impact top-line revenue. 

The other perspective is that marketers should leverage both strategies.  The two approaches may be like water and oil under normal conditions, but if you add a little heat... everything changes!  

One of the major benefits of broadcasting is that it is self-serve and self-propagating, and this works well to generate free publicity.  While marketers may be tasked with showing results... now, they shouldn't overlook the benefits of casting a wide net.  One can pull someone on into their world using a longtail search phrase for search engine optimization and then convert that interest to curiosity about web video.   Broadcasting, especially when tracked properly adds to the amount of data that one can collect, especially if the on-site behaviour is logged and then added to their contract record when they ultimately opt-in.  A concept best described by the CEO of Eloqua, Steve Woods, in his book "Deciphering Customers Intention in the Online World (aka Digital Body Language)"

What do you think?  Please leave your comments below.

Credit: I'm reposting this courtesy of Will Franco of JiveSystems. .